Police find a new way to reach out

The Franklin Police Department has joined the podcast revolution, becoming one of the first departments in the nation to use the hot new Internet technology to reach out to citizens.

''When you're dealing with tight budgets, it's on us to make sure people understand that we do more than driving around and occasionally turning on our lights," said Patrolman Brian Johnson.

The podcast, called ''Franklin's Finest," is ''a little blast to people to say, 'Hey, I think you should know about the other things' " that police do, said Johnson, a self-taught techie who manages the department's website.

Podcasts are broadcasts that are distributed over the Internet, rather than over radio or TV airwaves. They are almost always audio programs, but they can also include video content. Most people with Internet connections in their homes or office can get them easily.

Podcasts can be received by home computers and either played at home or uploaded to a portable digital audio player like an iPod.

Franklin has taken the cue from the New York City Police Department in using free podcasts.

The most recent New York Police Department podcast,called ''Inside the NYPD," featured everything from holiday traffic information to an interview with a specialist on terrorism. For now, the Boston Police Department does not podcast.

Paul Taylor, chief strategist at the Center for Digital Government, a California research institute, said podcasting is a low-cost, low-effort way that government agencies like police can further spread their message.

''This is the continuation of a wave. There has been a lot of heavy [technology investment] in last 10 years, and now they've been able to move quickly to podcasting," he said.

State governments have tried podcasting in Delaware and Tennessee, Taylor said.

The Franklin podcast is not exactly a polished production, but it's a user-friendly, easily digestible snippet of what the police are doing in this fast-growing town of about 30,000.

Johnson's first show features a collection of segments, punctuated by punchy music. One segment discusses the Route 140 construction project; another deals with the best way people can reach police on the phone.

Johnson also shares tips from a community service officer, Dan MacLean, on how to avoid theft while doing holiday shopping. And another officer details police efforts to curb alcohol-related traffic deaths in the holidays.

Johnson plans to produce a show every other week. Future segments will address everything from how people can make their homes safe to how they should act when pulled over by an officer in a traffic stop, he said.

''We look at what kind of questions people ask us on a regular basis," said Johnson, 32, who sees podcasting as a natural answer for the people who are too intimidated by police to ask questions directly.

In case of an emergency, Johnson said, he could do an impromptu podcast, offering useful information in a snowstorm, for example, about road conditions.

But even in an age when three-quarters of American households have some kind of Internet connection, and when children are plugged in to digital music players almost everywhere they go, will people really listen to police and local government podcasts?

That will depend more on people's interest in government, Taylor said, than on their technological know-how.

''There are a lot of people who live their lives without thinking about their local, state, or federal government," he said. ''Whatever their local [Internet] surfing habits, they're unlikely to surf over to anything that's .gov, he said, referring to the suffix for government websites.

The Police Department, which has about 50 officers, already sends out e-mail updates.

Johnson said he approached Chief Stephen Williams two weeks ago about taking the online interaction with the public one step further.

The first installment of ''Franklin's Finest" went online late last Sunday.

Two days later, Johnson said, around 200 people had downloaded the show.

While the term podcast is an amalgam of broadcasting and iPod, Apple's digital music player, people do not need to own Apple products to listen.

All they need is a computer with an Internet connection.

Taylor said Franklin's effort, at the very least, is important symbolically, because it shows that the police want to reach people in any way they can.

''It's a culturally cool indicator," he said.